Abstract
Dorceta E.Taylor’s book is a lengthy social history of the American conservation movement (ACM). This is the second book in a three-part series by Taylor (the other two are The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s–1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change and Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility). Although focusing mostly on elites (i.e., powerful white men), Taylor documents how race, class, and gender influenced the movement, from the preservation of national parks to the establishment of private hunting grounds. The book is divided into four parts. Part I focuses on the conceptual and material context of the early ACM as it was created largely by wealthy, male urbanites with ambivalent relationships to their cities. The second part is divided into three chapters that collectively highlight the sexism, racism, and classism embedded in the ACM. Part III is organized around wildlife protection and brings the reader’s attention to the ways that ‘noble hunters’ (wealthy white men) and their organizations tended to blame women, ethnic minorities, and poor people for wildlife decimation, and how this framing influenced conservation discourse and ideology. The final section examines the development of forest and wilderness conservation in order to highlight the roles played by race, class, and gender, as well as corporate power, in some of the preservation battles of the 20th century. The most important aspect of the book is Taylor’s incorporation of the experiences and thinking of poor people, people of color, and women.
For those unfamiliar with the ACM, this book provides an excellent introduction. First, it includes perspectives and experiences of women, poor and working-class people, and people of color, especially indigenous peoples and African Americans, but also Latino/as, Filipinos, Chinese Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Asian Americans. Second, Taylor covers the essential material that one will find in any history of the ACM, such as the battle over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and the birth of national forests and national parks. Finally, the book details the ideological underpinnings of the ACM, which is helpful in understanding conservation and environmentalism today. For instance, understanding the historical role of business environmentalism may be helpful in understanding the difficulties in reducing greenhouse gas emissions with which the climate movement continues to struggle.
For readers already well-acquainted with the ACM – and especially those expecting a social history ‘from below’ that prioritizes people of color, women, poor people, or other marginalized communities (including those not mentioned, such as prisoners, transgendered and queer people, or nonheterosexual people) – the book could have done more. For this camp, a faster-paced reading will decrease frustration around the well-rehearsed stories of John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, Theodor Roosevelt, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John James Audubon, George Grinnell, and other such prominent men. These mostly patrician figures clearly played prominent roles in the ACM, but this camp already knew that. Likewise, much has been written on the ideological differences between conservationists and preservationists and the conceit of wilderness as unspoiled and untouched (e.g., Cronon, 1995; Nash, 2014). The extractive industry’s interests in ‘wise use’ (conservation) and the tourist industry’s interest in preservation are well understood. So too are the purist associations to preservation and the populist associations to conservation.
This reviewer’s desire for a tighter focus on Taylor’s novel contributions – namely the perspective of marginalized people – should be understood less as a criticism than as a desire for more of what the author does well. Of course, this would likely come at the cost of the book’s documentation on the already well-known material on white men and their organizations and agencies, and mean a book less useful as a general introduction. In any case, The Rise of the American Conservation Movement shines when women like Sacagawea are described in ways that explode myths of the supposedly inherent connections among masculinity, ruggedness, and wilderness. The Lemhi Shoshone woman guided the Lewis and Clark expedition providing direction, translation, and food-gathering knowledge all while carrying her infant and working without pay. Taylor notes how the ‘settler colonial practice of ignoring the value tribes placed on their territories was evident in the campaign to establish Yellowstone and other national parks’ (p. 295). She points to the way individuals like Frederick Law Olmsted (the famous landscape architect) failed to appreciate the role native peoples played in creating and maintaining ‘virgin’ landscapes like the Yosemite Valley that only ‘civilized’ people could appreciate – not ‘savages’ (Olmsted’s words). More of this material would have been most welcome. Likewise, Native Americans’ experiences could have been better used to challenge the conservation/preservation distinction, like those of the Anasazi people of Mesa Verde, who, we are told, first objected to tourism, gold mining, and grave robbing, but started to collect fees from tourists when they could not stop them. Granted, materials from marginalized people are more difficult to procure relative to information on elites, often written by those very elites, but prominent environmental justice scholars like Taylor can lead the way.
The penultimate chapter, which covers racist practices and perspectives regarding wilderness, is one of the best. It is strong in spite of a somewhat rambling introduction and short conclusion. This is reminiscent of other chapters, and readers may sense that Taylor will share interesting information even if it does not provide evidence for a claim or move the narrative forward. A particularly rich section in this chapter covers racism and sexism within the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Native Americans and African Americans were ineligible early in the program and in some states. Once enrolled, segregation was widespread. Racism was also evident in the practice of blacks being assigned menial tasks like cooking that would not provide valuable skills after the program. At least people of color, including Mexican Americans, were able to participate in the CCC, although the program’s founders and administrators entirely excluded women. Despite efforts by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the CCC remained exclusively male. Roosevelt and Perkins established their own women’s work program, aided by a paltry grant from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. About 3000 women eventually participated in these programs, compared to the uplift provided to some 3 million men. Needless to say, non-whites and women benefitted much less through this massive government program than the white men it was designed to assist. In addition, Taylor points out how some wilderness advocates criticized the program on grounds that the work was unnecessary and would make wilderness areas too accessible. In these ways the CCC, one of the most important programs in terms of bringing people other than elite white men to wilderness, was attacked on ecological grounds and for making it easier for ‘the masses’ to recreate in nature. This, even while the program excluded women and marginalized the relatively small number of people of color who were able to participate directly. This provides the reader a valuable lesson relevant to understanding the whiteness and elitism of the environmental movement up to the present.
Just as I would have liked more of the excellent material on marginalized people, and their perspectives and experiences, the book is short on arguments. Those present are convincing, and I only wish they were explored in greater detail. Taylor argues that ‘business environmentalism’ was prominent in the ACM. It combined aspects of capitalists’ interests, conservationism, preservationism, and utilitarianism. In essence, businesses such as gun manufacturers and rail operators collaborated with political and conservation elites to accomplish shared, albeit compromised, goals. Business environmentalism makes sense, though it is unclear who takes the counterargument, that the ACM was a grassroots and mass-based movement. The only other argument I saw was important and present throughout much of the text: women, people of color, and poor people have been unfairly excluded from environmental histories. This has a cost, and it should be corrected. For instance, Taylor uses the story of Harriet Tubman, the renowned runaway slave who led other runaways to freedom on the Underground Railroad, to argue that African Americans and other marginalized people can be read from an environmental perspective. Tubman’s ecological knowledge and sensitivities were intense. She could predict the weather, communicate using birdcalls, and source foods and medicines all while navigating forests in the dark with slaveowners and their hounds searching for her. Taylor’s attention to the ecological practice and thought in Tubman and others like Phillis Wheatley is welcomed, and I hope others follow her lead here.
In summary, Taylor’s Rise of the American Conservation Movement is an excellent overview of the ACM. The book is well-suited for undergraduates, especially for introductory courses on the history of environmentalism in the United States. My criticisms have an easy antidote: skim the parts with which you are already familiar! There is a great deal of material that will be useful to graduate students, scholars, and faculty, especially environmental historians and environmental sociologists.